Pathfinder - Rogue Archetypes Breakdown

Disclaimer

I will use content from the core rules, but will intentionally omit any content not published
on the official Pathfinder SRD due to the
unmanageable volume of non-SRD content, and the wildly varying quality of non-SRD content.
If you would like me to write handbooks for specific content not published on the official
SRD, please email me and I will consider it on a case-by-case
basis. I will use the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build
handbooks. Also note that many colored items are also links to the Paizo SRD.

Red: Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational.

Orange: OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances

Green: Good options.

Blue: Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character.

Temporary Note: Pathfinder Unchained and Occult Adventures were
both recently added to the SRD. I'm excited to explore them, and I am actively working
on adding their contents to my collection of handbooks. I appreciate your patience while
I make these changes.

Archetypes

The rogue can serve as a face, a scout, and a striker. Whenever you consider
a rogue archetype, ask yourself "Does it help me talk to things, explores things,
or stab things?" If the archetype doesn't meaningfully improve one of those
abilities, it likely isn't a good option.

Many rogue archetypes can be combined easily. Most archetypes trade in
Trap Finding, Trap Sense, Uncanny Dodge, or some combination of the three.

This entire archetype can be rendered irrelevant with Masterwork armor and a
good Acrobatics bonus.

Expert Acrobat (Ex): The absolute worst armor check
penalty from light armor is -2 on non-masterwork chain shirt. Masterwork reduces
this by 1, and mithral completely removes it. After level 1, this ability is
almost complete useless. The +2 bonus to acrobatics and fly certainly does not
outweight the benefits of wearing armor.

Second Chance (Ex): Rerolling acrobatics might save
you an attack of opportunity, which is nice once in a while. Climb will almost
never be important, especially when flying becomes a thing. Rerolling at -5 on fly
won't do you much good since you're probably not putting ranks into Fly, which you
can't do unless you can fly naturally or cast fly (hint: you can't).

If surprise rounds are important for your build, Bandit can be a big help.
Extra actions before other people act can define the outcome of the fight. However,
Fearsome Strike is terrible and you will probably never use it.

Ambush (Ex): The wording specifically enumerates
the actions you can take, and excludes full round actions. Still, being able to
both move and attack gives you a lot of options.

Fearsome Strike (Ex): Rogues and critical hits do
not mix. To use this reliably, you have to focus on critical hits. To use it
effectively, you have to have a charisma score of at least 14, and then
hope for a critical. Even if I had this, I would probably never use it.

If you really need to handle traps, Trapsmith is better. Otherwise, you must
really want Distraction. Distraction is cute, but not worth being forced to
take Careful Disarm.

Careful Disarm (Ex): Unless your DM likes to use a
fantastically huge number of traps, this will very rarely matter. Plus, if you
trade in Trap Sense with another archetype, you lose half of this feature.

Distraction (Ex): This is a pretty funny ability.
Using bluff to distract someone while your Stealthing is a good trick. However,
it's probably not going to come into play very often.

UMD is widely considered one of the most powerful skills in the game due to its
fantastic versatility. If you really like to use UMD to use wands and scrolls, this
archetype is the way to do it.

Magical Expertise (Ex): You get to keep the important
part of Trapfinding (the ability to find and disable magical traps), and you trade
the less important part for the ability to add half of your Rogue level to UMD checks
to use scrolls and wands, which should cover most of your uses of UMD. You need a +19
to UMD to guarantee that you can always use a wand, and this will help you hit that
point much earlier than most characters could.

Signature Wand (Ex): The ability to draw your wand as
a free action is nice, but not always necessary. If you plan to use wands you need to
have high enough UMD that making checks shouldn't be a problem, so the ability to use
your signature wand without a check will stop mattering by around level 10. For the
time being, this allows you to reliably use UMD before most Rogues can do so.

Wand Adept (Ex): Nearly every Rogue will have higher
Dexterity than Charisma, so this should be a significant boost to your UMD checks.

Hidden Blade: Hiding weapons on your body is very
rarely important, unless your campaign involves a lot of espionage. However, there
are ways to capitalize on hidden weapons, and this reduces your need to invest ranks
in Sleight of Hand.

Sneak Stab (Ex): The keystone of the archetype, this
bumps your sneak attack dice to d8's with your primary weapon. You can sneak attack
with several weapons which are considered "knives", but the dagger is the best
option.

Blade Sense (Ex): Extremely situational. Unless you
challenge someone to a knife fight, you may never get to use this ability. It's
about as situational as Trap Sense, so no big loss here.

If you want to use poison on a rogue, this is a great way to do it. If you're
looking to use poisons with other classes, this archetype is a great option for a
rogue dip.

Poison Use (Ex): A requirement for anyone who likes to
use poison.

Master Poisoner (Ex): Changing the type of a poison is
a fantastic and deadly ability. Many ingested poisons are incredibly deadly, and
changing them to wound or contact makes them considerably more versatile. The bonuses
to Craft (Alchemy) are nice since you're going to need to craft your own poisons.

Rake is a great option if your rogue is party's face, or if you want Intimidate
to be part of your combat strategy. If you want to use intimidate, this is a good
way to justify dipping into rogue for a level.

Bravado's Blade (Ex): Dropping 1d6 of sneak attack
damage is basically nothing after very low levels. An average of 3.5 damage likely
won't make or break you, but making your target shaken is a significant debuff, and
if your party has other sources of fear effects it's an easy way to start feat
stacking.

Rake's Smile (Ex): Morale bonuses to skills are few and
far between, so this bonus will stack with a ton of things.

Unless your campaign involves a lot of roof running (maybe it does if you really
like Sigil or something), this archetype won't do much for you.

Roof Running (Ex): I didn't even know that there were
penalties specifically for moving on a roof. If there are, they probably aren't
worth a class feature to offset.

Tumbling Descent (Ex): This is a really exciting trick,
but I would just let someone do this as a normal function of Acrobatics. No one
should ever need a class feature to do something that they might do once or twice
in their life.

Moving is rarely the rogue's best option for doing damage. Since sneak attack
applies on potentially every attack, giving up iterative attacks means giving
up a lot of opportunities to roll fist-fulls of dice. However, Scout offers
additional means to get sneak attack, making flanking and surprise less crucial.
It also gives archer rogues a reliable way to deal sneak attack damage without
sniping.

Scout's Charge (Ex): Sneak attack on a charge is
pretty good. However, that's generally once once or twice during a combat. Giving
up AC to charge is also hard for squishy characters like rogues.

Skirmisher (Ex): You will need to be tumbling if
you're in melee, or you will be using a ranged weapon. You have to give up using
a full attack to use Skirmisher, but this is a reliable way to get sneak attack
without relying on your party of feinting.

Long-range sniping is not a good option for rogues. Sneak attack only applies
within 30 feet, but with this archetype that range increases to 90 feet. If you
are playing an archer and like to fight at exceptionally long range, you might
consider dipping into this archetype for one level.

Accuracy (Ex): Fighting at exceptionally long range
is not a good option for a rogue. Your damage without sneak attack is pitiful.

Deadly Range (Ex): This is the only thing that
makes this archetype even slightly interesting. Sniping at greater range makes
it easier to hide using the Sniping rules, which can make this viable. However,
your range will still never be particularly long.

The only real reason to take Swashbuckler is for proficiency with a martial
weapon, and there are a ton of ways to get proficiency with martial weapons,
and you're already proficient with rapiers, which are probably your best option
as a rogue. If you need other martial weapons, just dip a level into Fighter.

Martial Training (Ex): Worth a really shitty feat, or
a class dip into one of a number of fantastic classes.

Daring (Ex): Your acrobatics skill will already be great
if you plan to use Acrobatics, and Fear saves aren't terribly common or hard to
overcome by other means.

The thug gets a buff to intimidating people, but doesn't get a mechanism to
actually intimidate. Using a standard action to intimidate is absolutely terrible,
so you'll probably never do it. Brutal Beating sickens people, which is nice if you
can find another good way to intimidate people. Combined with the Enforcer feat,
this archetype could be playable. Otherwise, Rake is strictly better.

Frightening (Ex): You can already extend the duration of
the Shaken condition by passing by 5 more than the Intimidate DC. If you need to
keep people intimidated longer, just be more intimidating.

Brutal Beating (Ex): Sickened is a nice status
condition, but not nearly as effective as Shaken since Sickened/Nauseated doesn't
follow a track like Shaken/Frightened/Panicked, and nauseated doesn't apply as
many penalties to the victim.

Even if your game involves a lot of traps, this is a lackluster option. If you're
good at disarming traps (and rogues are by default), this archetype doesn't offer
you anything interesting that you couldn't do already.

Careful Disarm (Ex): A trapsmith should never fail by a
significant margin. The insurance is nice, but hardly necessary.

Trap Master (Ex): Highly situational. You might get to
use this once in an entire campaign if you're extremely lucky and your DM likes traps.

The Underground Chemist really like splash weapons like Acid and Alchemist's fire.
Alchemical weapons can get fairly expensive, but they're undeniably effective, and
crafting them yourself can significantly cut down on their cost. Combined with the
Scout, the Underground Chemist can be a very reliable source of damage. At high levels
the Underground Chemist gets access to some Alchemist Discoveries which make the
Underground Chemist very good with poisons. The Underground Chemist also makes
Intelligence arguably more important to the Rogue than Dexterity.

Chemical Weapons (Ex): Losing Evasion hurts, but this
can dramatically improve the effectiveness of splash weapons like Acid and Alchemist's
Fire. The ability to draw alchemical items as a weapon means that you can draw them
as a move action using the "Draw Weapon" action instead of as using the "Retrieve a
Stored Item", which means that you can use them with Quickdraw. I think you can use
alchemical weapons with Quickdraw without this ability, but this allows you to
quickdraw things like Antitoxin.

Precise Splash Weapons (Ex): This hugely reduces the
difficulty of dealing Sneak Attack damage, especially against enemies with high AC.
Pick up a flash of Acid, and go surprise someone. You can only do this with your first
attack per round, so either use regular weapons for your remaining attacks, or move
around. If you combine this archetype with Scout, you can move and attack every round
and get guranteed Sneak Attack.

Discovery (Su): Several fantastic options for a Rogue.
The poison options are particularly tempting, but they're hard to use in combination
with Precise Splash Weapons.

concentrate poison: Helps address the DC issue,
but doubles the cost of using poison.

dilution: Squeeze some more value out of potions.

enhance potion: Hugely improved the usefulness of
potions.

extend potion: Fantastic for portions with short
duration buffs. Combine with Enhance Potion to get truly fantastic results.

mummification: Get some really great immunities.

nauseating flesh: Very situational.

poison conversion: Makes poison considerably more
versatile. Ingested poisons tend to be the most dangerous, but they're hard to
deliver. Convert them to contact/wound poisons.

preserve organs: Very situational.

spontaneous healing: A bit like having Toughness
2.5 times. Great for handling bleed effects or stabilizing while unconscious.

sticky poison: Hugely extends the usefulness of
poisons. Concentrate Poison becomes way less problematic when you can squeeze
2+ uses of poison out of a single dose.